Our family stopped at an isolated roadside Denny's. Finished scarfing early, we went outside and ran around before getting back into the car for a long haul home. My sister found a praying mantis at the edge of the clearing. It was green and HUGE and FAT. She brought it into the car. Transported it home. Put it in a shoebox. Forgot about it, as children do. Opened the box one day and it was dead, but it left behind a bunch of cotton-looking stuff. Closed the box again. Opened the box again a few days later and a BILLION baby praying mantises flew out of the box. Or maybe it was a hundred. OKAY FINE! twenty or so baby praying mantises flew out of the box. Or possibly they just crawled out of the box and my sister screamed anyway because she's a natural-born drama queen. Hey, it was a long time ago, ah'ight, and I wasn't in the room when she opened the shoebox. Apologies for my story not having any bitten off heads.

Synova, kinda close. Males usually don't get eaten (depends a lot on the species). In the wild they will sometimes wait until the female has a catch before approaching. The male that isn't eaten goes off to find another female. The female mantid (that one is an Aridifolia sinensis) will lay a number of ootheca before death. I've had Chinese mantids (A.f.) lay up to six or seven with maybe 150 eggs in each.

Is this on facebook, too? Three of my relatives have posted pictures of the Great Big preying mantises they have found in their yards, on their truck, a couple of others have posted their tales of the critters. Must be preying mantis season.